In the prior art, cooling members are used to cool electronic components such as microprocessors or the power IC components of data processing equipment that comprise a plurality of fins so as to provide the largest possible surface area for the heat exchange between the cooling member and the cooling medium, such as air, surrounding the cooling member. To achieve efficient cooling, the thermal resistance between the surface of the components to be cooled, the cooling member and the cooling medium should be minimized. Where only small quantities of heat need be dissipated, a high heat-conducting connection between the components to be cooled and the cooling member is sufficient to provide passive cooling of the components. When larger quantities of heat have to be dissipated, fans are frequently used in the prior art, the fans being mounted close to the cooling member. These fans generate an air flow in the region of the cooling member and consequently improve the heat emission from the cooling body to the environment. Such combinations of cooling members and fans are used, for example, for cooling processors, particularly CPUs in PCs and other electronic data processing (EDP) equipment.
The efficiency of a fan used to locally increase the air flow speed in the region of the cooling member is always subject to restrictions due to the fact that the separation of heat-exchange surfaces and the generation of air flows constantly involves a compromise between air flow and heat conductivity. The emission of heat to the environment requires the largest possible surface area, which, given limited space, can only be realized by using a large number of cooling fins. If the cooling fins are too thin, heat cannot be efficiently conducted into the fins, i.e. a minimum fin thickness, which has to be made to adapt to the overall system, is necessary.
If the outside dimensions of the cooling member are limited, this goes to greatly reduce the free cross-section available for the cooling channels. At the same time, the loss of pressure is significantly increased and the flow rate of the cooling medium is greatly diminished. This results in a substantial rise in the temperature of the cooling medium and thus the temperature of the components to be cooled as well, i.e. the cooling effect declines considerably.
The object of the invention is to provide a cooling apparatus for electronic components such as micro-processors in EDP equipment that can effectively cool these components with a high degree of efficiency.